Do You Know Your Contents Purpose?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what are a thousand words worth if they have nothing of any value to say? As you create or evaluate your content strategy, it’s essential to evaluate whether your message is on-point, supports your strategy and offers something of true value to your audience. In recent months, there has been a somewhat misguided debate about whether content is still king in the realm of marketing in 2019. In my opinion, this debate would be much more relevant (and worthy of our time) if it were about the value of quality content versus quantity content. So, let’s drill down on why quality content matters and how to create it, shall we?

 

Your Guide To Creating Quality Content + Why It Matters

 

A Quick SEO Backgrounder – Content is a quintessential segment of the marketing mix for many reasons with SEO being at the forefront. In days gone by, producing content that was stuffed with relevant keywords could garner Google’s attention and get your site ranking in search. With the algorithm updates that followed over a series of many years, Google became wise to those trying to “school” its system, and the low hanging fruit was no longer easy to grasp. Google’s powerful search engine began to evaluate a multitude of issues surrounding mobile performance, user experience, site load time, spammy behaviors and, most pervasively, quality content. Words like search intent and content relevance became mantras of savvy content strategists that had their eyes on the ball.

 

Other Areas Quality Content Matters – SEO is an extremely important part of almost any marketing mix, but quality content matters in other areas of the marketing ecosystem as well.

 

• Social media is a waste of time without quality content. Boom, I said it. If you have a team pushing out social media content that is bland, boring or, even worse, poor quality just to cross a task off the list, you may be better off pressing pause on it all until you can find a better strategy.
• Your brand equity depends on quality content. We all have those brands that we admire. When we see that aspirational Nike ad on television or receive our free try-on frames from Warby Parker in the mail, we get that warm fuzzy feeling inside. Those brands have spent years (and millions of dollars) creating content that supports their brand image at every touchpoint. Brand equity is hard to establish and even harder to hang on to, pushing out poor quality content is a sure-fire way to quickly water down any brand value you’ve created.
• Your bottom line craves quality content. Every action has a reaction, and in business, every task has a cost. It seems intuitive to say that the creation of quality content leads your customers to more conversion-oriented behavior, but believe it, or not many companies make the mistake of wasting time and precious marketing resources on content that does not move the needle by any metric. Producing content for the sake of producing content is simply not a sound strategy.

 

A Case in Point – Countless case studies can be found where big brands are winning at the content game with effective content strategy that focuses on quality versus quantity. And, small to mid-sized businesses that don’t have the brand cache of the Amazons and American Expresses of the world are also moving the needle with quality content as well. Check out a real-world success story:

 

• In 2018, I began working with a client to create a comprehensive content strategy that had a singular, overarching goal. The content we created was high quality, authentic and laser-focused on one aspect of their business that needed a boost.
• Upon a review of the numbers, we found that not only had the content performed well in terms of traffic and engagement, but the sales revenue related to this service line increased by 50% in correlation with the time of our content rollout. Drilling down even further, they established that the initiative had not only increased their sales but had also elevated the client base.

 

By producing quality content across all marketing channels, you’ll inevitably find success in the areas of SEO, social media engagement, brand development and improved customer experience. Quality, in almost every case, wins over quantity, and in the category of content strategy, nothing could be further from the truth. If you are ready to create a quality content strategy that helps your business grow, or if you think it’s time for an audit of your current efforts, Jackie Awve Marketing is standing by with the assist.

 

Let’s get to work on quality content for your business!